"It is time for us to stand and cheer for the doer, the achiever, the one who recognizes the challenge and does something about it." - Vince Lombardi.

How does ecommerce differ from entrepreneurialism? Well, the former is dependent on the latter. What this means is that for every ecommerce business there is an entrepreneur that had to balance risk and reward and determine to move forward with a business plan, proposal and ecommerce site.

Entrepreneurialism is bolstered by the ability to develop a business that can reach around the world and back.

Entrepreneurialism is the mindset and soul of a business; ecommerce is how an entrepreneur can realize a very personal dream.

Entrepreneurialism is a patchwork quilt of ideas that seeks out likeminded consumers through ecommerce.

These two roles are uniquely different, but also distinctly compatible in the development of an online business. In all phases of development, the entrepreneur should express positive emotion as the very thing only dreamed about comes closer to becoming a reality.

There are many wannabe entrepreneurs who have dreams, but they gather dust in the back of minds because of fear, poor choices or other limitations that make it difficult for these individuals to consider developing their own business.

Did you know that President Abraham Lincoln, one of the most revered Presidents in history, had a track record that indicated he was less than an ideal candidate for success? He had little formal education coupled with personal, political and business loss. He often seemed to side with the minority political opinion and he even went through bankruptcy.

Yet it was this President that brought about the end of slavery in America. It was his belief in justice and freedom that caused him to rebound from failure after failure. He learned what he could from the mistakes and discouragements he encountered. In the end he prevailed in the radical alteration in how America treated its citizens.

You may have tried using your entrepreneurial ambitions in an ecommerce setting and failed. In that knowledge you may be gun shy about giving ecommerce a second try.
If there is anything to learn from the life of President Lincoln it is that no matter how difficult things get it does not have to signal the end of a dream. Difficult circumstances can simply be the mechanism needed to come at the problem from a new perspective of perseverance.

“Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.” - Thomas Edison

Chapter 1: Accounting Principles

Ecommerce was seen as a passing fad or gimmick when the pioneers of the process began.

Certainly, being tied to a computer screen to make a purchase you would need to wait for wouldn’t hold the interest of consumers. Yet inroads were made and sales were conducted.

One of the prevailing difficulties associated with early online transactions was the safety of personal financial information. As hackers gained access to non-encrypted data it was a rallying point for many ecommerce businesses. There had to be a better way to do online business.

The Debut of Encryption

Webopedia describes encryption this way, “The translation of data into a secret code. Encryption is the most effective way to achieve data security. To read an encrypted file, you must have access to a secret key or password that enables you to decrypt it.”

The keys to ecommerce were given back to online business when transactions became encrypted. The privacy of customer data allowed ecommerce to become a viable option for consumers once more.

Suddenly the world of cottage industry and extensions of brick and mortar stores began to flourish and entrepreneurs began to willingly dip their toe into the cyber frontier.

This was a new way of doing business in the cutting edge of intangibles. No longer did business owners absolutely need a sales staff, no longer was an outgoing personality required for business startup, no longer did business mean a storefront.